Massive ransomware infection hits computers in 99 countries

Dozens of hospitals in Britain’s National Health Service were affected and several still had to cancel appointments on Monday, as doctors warned of delays as they can not access medical records. “I’m anxious about how the numbers will continue to grow when people go to work and turn their machines on Monday morning”.

Europol said European companies and governments had heeded warnings and as a result avoided further fallout from the ransomware. The attack mostly impacted computers in Europe and Asia and for the most part spared North America. No reports have come to Cert-In.

A bitcoin virus pop-up message had been introduced on to the network asking users to pay $300 to be able to access their PCs. The ransomware was created to repeatedly contact an unregistered domain in its code.

Forcepoint Security Labs said that “a major malicious email campaign” consisting of almost five million emails per hour was spreading the new ransomware.

Follow this link for live tracking of the malware attack.

In the US, where the effects haven’t appeared to be widespread, investigators believe additional companies have been attacked but have not yet come forward to report it, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. “It’s a big priority of mine that we protect the financial infrastructure”, he said.

The minister said lessons had to be learned from the attack.

The agency said Monday that “very few” people have paid the ransom.

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that takes over a computer and locks the user out, preventing them from accessing any files until they pay money.

The firm analysed the malicious software, and found that the wormable component is based on the EternalBlue exploit that had been leaked out in a data dump allegedly coming from the NSA.

Spain, meanwhile, said several Spanish companies had been targeted in ransomware cyberattack that affected the Windows operating system of employees’ computers.

The ransomware’s code takes advantage of an exploit called EternalBlue, made public in April by Shadow Brokers which was patched by Microsoft in March, It comes as a shock that an organisation the size of the NHS seem not to have kept their computers updated. And screengrabs of affected machines at the two organisations show the same bitcoin address, suggesting it is one broad attack that has hit both. “You won’t have to spend like you spend on an army, it’s just a group of experts spreading best practices”.

It was not yet known who perpetrated Friday’s attacks.

The world-wide attack apparently is the work of a criminal gang.

The UK’s state-run National Health Service declared a “major incident” after the attack, which forced some hospitals to divert ambulances and scrap operations. The company said the virus has been localized and “technical work is underway to destroy it and update the antivirus protection”.

Prasad said the government was working hard to promote Digital India throughout the country.

United Kingdom defense secretary Michael Fallon said Sunday that Britain’s nuclear submarines were safe from cyberattack.

Some reports said Russian Federation had seen more infections than any other single country.

That way even if you’re hit with ransomware you’ve got all your files protected elsewhere.